After experiencing some inconsistencies with transit effects, I'm beginning to think that planet features (angularity) and aspect structures (including even the lack of aspects) might contribute toward how they manifest in our lives. The inconsistencies mentioned had to do with transits by Jupiter observed this year, the first of which was an opposition to my Sun, followed by a square to Mars, and then a more recent simultaneous opposition to my Mercury and a conjunction with my Pluto. The aspects to my Sun and Mars produced demonstrable effects on both life and character, and both my Sun and Mars are lacking Ptolemaic aspects within considerable degrees. The fact that my Mars is in the foreground might have played a part in what I observed, but since my Sun is cadent, and since a similar level of influence was observed during its received transit as well, it doesn't seem that angularity contributed much at all. In contrast, the resent simultaneous transit by Jupiter to my Mercury and Pluto has been at most a stellar fart, a complete dud. Perhaps since the former natal bodies, the Sun and Mars, lack integration with the chart, their received aspects become especially pronounced as their energies are usually across the fence and unfamiliar. And perhaps I'm much too familiar with the influences of Mercury and Pluto to notice any change at all, since both of them together do form my closest aspect, a °15 angular opposition. Or perhaps the importance attributed to the Sun, Moon, Mars by the Gauquelin et al data carries over to transits, perhaps transits to these inner planets are more easily felt, more observable, momentous, than transits to all the others.

If you can identify clear rules or guidelines that work more or less consistently across more or less every chart you see, across decades of the person's life... that would be very interesting. There has always been thought that something is modulating this, but nobody has ever identified it.

My own view - a default view in the absence of anything else being isolated - is that the seeming inconsistency of transits arises out of the complexity of life and the universe. In my experience, transits pretty much always work, though not always at the same strength. (The "big event," good or bad, that one expects turns out to be modest but true-feeling mall thing - no inconsistency in character, but variability in scale.) Much of the time (but one can't say it's always), when a transit seems derailed there is indeed something else big going on in one of the other important charts that takes priority on the occasion (that's the complexity part). Of course, transits to Sun, Moon, and the angles are going to always stand out head and shoulders above others, just as connections of luminaries and angles stand out everywhere else in astrology.

At different times, different astrologers (myself included) have thought and hoped that the Sidereal mundane charts (ingresses etc.) would provide an "umbrella" rheostat - that perhaps the transits were strongest and most important that fell in the foreground of the ingresses or on Capsolar quotidian angles for the day. This hasn't held up, and I've looked at it for months on end hoping it would.

Another approach is that our personal solar and lunar returns serve the same kind of rheostat effect. This one is more complicated: There are some phenomena which make this seem to be true, but I don't think its a real effect. The phenomena that make it seem to be true is that transits to natal planets occurring in the return chart itself, near the angles of that chart, are indeed greatly important, even at wider orbs. But this is a function of reading the return chart itself - one of the other major predictive layers - not a separate "strength scale" for other transits that come and go during the term of the chart.

I've never noticed, and think it's not true, that the degree of integration of a planet in one's natal charts or the angularity of a planet in one's natal chart has anything to do with strength of transits to that planet. Of course, it's always possible I've just never noticed this and you've noticed something I missed, but my opinion is that there is nothing to it. For one thing, the planet that seems to misfire today won't be the same planet that tends to misfire next time.

At the same time, there could be phenomena similar to these which - due to complexity of life and the universe - seem to have an effect. The most obvious examples are when two factors are so close in longitude that you can't separate them, or that effects move quickly from one to the other. Partile aspects are like this: I have Venus square Pluto 0°13' so I'm never going to have Sun transiting my Venus be a nice, sweet, relaxed day of comfy pleasure: Sun simultaneously aspects Pluto, so these are usually days of intense, compelling, edgy engagement. If a planet is exactly on an angle and seems to receive transits more strongly, maybe it's the transit to the angle itself that is being discerned. (This doesn't apply to your Mars, since Mars is several degrees from IC; but it's worth making the point.)

Even when it isn't partile, there are other effects. My Mercury is 2°24' from conjunct Saturn, its only aspect. Jupiter transits to my Mercury work fine on their own, and are distinguishable from the earlier transits to my Saturn; but there is definitely a gradual blending - often it feels like a life-flow process - as Jupiter (for example; or Mars, or whatever) first hits 14°57' Rim for my Saturn, then 16°09' which is the Mercury/Saturn midpoint, then 17°21' for the Mercury, barely getting out of partile orb for one before it gets to the next. This sets up cascading effects in my life that, even though astrologically very distinct, are still all part of the flow of my life, so my perception of them generally links or associates them somehow.

Even more widely, when such serial transits aren't involved, other aspects and chart conditions are part of the mix simply because they're part of you. How transit X to natal Y affects you is different from how it affects me because we are different people, wired to respond to life differently. Usually this is shown in the chart by the conditions of the natal planet in a more general sense. My Mars isn't just Mars itself - and not just the Mars that, once a planet crosses it, the planet goes on to aspect my Neptune 2° later etc. No my Mars - how my Marsness is wired to operate - is Sagittarian, middleground, and closely sextile Moon and Venus, closely square Neptune, more widely opposite Jupiter and Uranus. It is exactly at the Moon/Venus midpoint (sextile both) and also aspecting the Moon/Pluto and Sun/Jupiter midpoints. At some level (often a small level), all of this goes into how my Mars side has developed over my life and, therefore, how my aggressive needs will come forth when a transit or progression aspects it.

Even with all of this... which is a lot!... the simpler truth is that most transits simply "work as advertised," work reliably, have straightforward expressions that are pretty consistent (within a few obvious variants) from person to person. When there are consistent departures for a given person (like the way transits to my Venus are never as gentle as one might like), the reason is usually pretty obvious. Most of these other factors are crisp, independent factors that can be understood individually as easily as they can be understood together. And then, for reasons that have never been thoroughly clear to me, some of these have much bigger effects than others.

Keep digging. Keep looking. This is an interesting topic most astrologers have engaged at one time or another, so now it's your turn. My bestadvice is to expect what you think you have found to hold up over time and with repetition, and not just in isolated instances.

The inconsistencies mentioned had to do with transits by Jupiter observed this year, the first of which was an opposition to my Sun, followed by a square to Mars, and then a more recent simultaneous opposition to my Mercury and a conjunction with my Pluto. The aspects to my Sun and Mars produced demonstrable effects on both life and character... In contrast, the resent simultaneous transit by Jupiter to my Mercury and Pluto has been at most a stellar fart, a complete dud.

I doubt that's true (though it could be true despite my doubt ). In fact, you're still in the middle of the transits, so you can't necessarily say. Try this: Please describe what the main features of your life are/were from November 3 to November 14.

There is so much more going on inside you then you can pissibly know, at a deep cellular level.

While you might not think you have any visible manifestations to show for your tansits, trust they are there.

Maybe you grew a cool patch of hair on your back that you cant see. Maybe your molars shifted in your jaw just so, maybe that one eyebrow hair that bugs you fell out. And maybe you farted and released old toxic gas that was clogging up your insides.

Birthplace would be way more exciting, and I expect my sister-in-law to come up with all kinds of things she wants to do to my property there with my money, but here where I live, I expect to get asked for Thanksgiving Dinner unexpectedly and probably be asked to bring something more expensive than I usually would. Or something. I might buy a lottery ticket for the day when the Sun-NJup-LJup is as close as it's going to get.

The point is, planets near the natal and/or lunar angles express more and partile aspects are stronger so have more to express.

I've found transits are even more likely to be evident when they are angular in my lunar return and they show less when they aren't.

Exactly my experience!
JSAD wrote:

The point is, planets near the natal and/or lunar angles express more and partile aspects are stronger so have more to express.

Again, exactly my experience. These type transits are when one is more likely to experience ‘outstanding incidents’ relative to one’s imitate environment. And don’t forget these same type transits when found near the solar return angles which are in effect for the whole solar year.